


6 Maruda Drabbles

by YogurtTime



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drabbles, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Multi, Sex, Sexting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2019-02-14 23:10:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13018161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YogurtTime/pseuds/YogurtTime
Summary: 6 drabbles I wrote for 6 words prompted by other shippers where they chose the genre of each. The words were: parenting, mail, lost, law, sand, and flower.





	6 Maruda Drabbles

 

 ****_1._  
Word Choice: "Parenting"  
Porn, angst or fluff: hah fluff seems to be an appropriate choice in this case

**Don't Make Me Come Back There, I Beg You**

 

  
Nakamaru never actually intended to rent a Solio van for the beach trip ,but given all its convenient accoutrements—especially at present—Nakamaru is now convinced that the interior designer must have thought _I want to make the kind of vehicle that can handle KAT-TUN_.

By said standards, it should be ideal and they should have been able to arrive at the private sandy shore with very little fuss barring the obligatory music stand-off. (Nakamaru was the _driver_ ; it simply wasn’t up for discussion— _Taguchi, keep your iPod jack to yourself, or so help me, I will turn this car around!_.)

It _could_ have been ideal. Ueda was in the passenger seat next to him; Nakamaru had insisted. It didn’t mean anything. It was just that Ueda was the best person to ride with; he didn’t backseat drive, he didn’t fiddle with the a/c, and he wasn’t Taguchi.

“Do you _mind_?” snapped Kame from behind Nakamaru’s seat.

“What?” Nakamaru replied, all got up with long-suffering as he squeezed the wheel.

“Not you,” Kame replied. “The two in the back. Someone’s kicking my seat and--”

“Wasn’t me,” Taguchi said quickly, voice muffled.

“Do we have to do this every time we get in an enclosed space together, guys?” Nakamaru called, frowning into the rearview. All he saw was Taguchi’s head duck out of sight. Nakamaru glanced pointedly at Ueda.

Ueda rested his cheek on his palm, elbow out the window. He’d somehow come upon the strawberry jelly biscuits Nakamaru had hidden in his bag. Ueda took a bite and shot a sidelong glance at Nakamaru, an especially glimmering and ephemeral smile to go with it. He’d be irritated if it weren’t a sudden perplexing balm. Could be the reflection from the sun. Nakamaru glared back at the road.

“Koki’s sleeping, Taguchi; it _has_ to be you…”

“Wasn’t me, I said,” Taguchi returned curtly.

“Koki, are you actually sleeping?” Kame demanded. Nakamaru heard him turn in his seat. “No, you’re not, you’re--oh.”

Silence. Nakamaru then heard the creak of the middle seat as Kame slowly turned around and settled back like nothing had just happened An informed speculation floated above all of them in Kame’s residual quiet. Taguchi laughed a little; one of his casual, passing laughs; the very sound of which would someday crown Nakamaru’s hour of passing.

“What is Koki--” Nakamaru began, already considering pulling up on the curb right then and there, but he was interrupted by Ueda quickly reaching over to twist the volume knob up. Nakamaru tore his eyes from the road to look at Ueda as he let his hand drop from the stereo controls to brush the back of Nakamaru’s closed on the stick-shift. Hesitant fingers but a sure touch when it grazed Nakamaru’s knuckles.

Nakamaru forgot what he was about to say when Ueda gave him a quick head-shake of ‘Just don’t,” and that minute moment had the ocean swallowing him up because he stopped breathing.

The music blared. Kame was quiet and whatever was going on in the very back didn’t matter because Ueda didn’t pull away no matter how much harder he gripped the stick-shift.

 

 

2.  
**_Word Choice: mail  
Porn, angst or fluff: porn that leads into fluff? :))_**

**AutoCorrect Refresh**

  
Sometimes they have this conversation. It isn’t a private conversation, but it must be just them two. There’s no particular subject, but it’s his favourite thing to talk about. With time, they’ve both agreed that it bears its continuation during long meetings, car rides, and quiet waiting in the dressing rooms and that it must always be through mail. And the final rule is that no one else is meant to know they’re mailing each other.

There’s just something particularly thrilling about a conversation no one else knows about regardless of the subject matter.

This time it was about dinner. It happened to be the green room, divided by their three other band mates all doing their own thing. It was cheating to watch Ueda, but Nakamaru didn’t care. Ueda had his feet propped on the makeup counter, his chair tipped on two back legs and a childhood summer smile.

It was about dinner, for sure, and the fact that he wanted to go out tonight, but Nakamaru had gotten it into his head that perhaps--just this once-- he could convince Ueda to treat him. It had escalated and it was getting to be really silly. Ueda’s shoulders kept shaking with each reply and he quickly masked one particular laugh by taking a fake swig from his coke bottle.

Nakamaru smiled at his screen, biting his lip so he wouldn’t laugh even when he sent an angry emoji at him, typing a quick [ **you owe me like eight years worth of dinner, the very least you could do at this point is give me some of your coke**.] and hitting send while pointedly looking away so Ueda’s reaction wouldn’t make him give in.

Except he didn’t hear a single sound. Didn’t hear Ueda so much as breathe. Nakamaru looked up quickly and Ueda was staring at his screen with a dark look. He was typing hurriedly and Nakamaru, a little crestfallen, looked down at his phone just as Ueda’s message shifted in.

[ **Seriously?** ]

Nakamaru frowned, puzzled. Of course he wasn’t serious, but it was a weird reply. He re-read what he’d sent and blanched considerably just as his mouth went dry.

There was nothing wrong with telling Ueda to give him some of his cola. Except that’s not what Nakamaru had sent him. He wasn’t sure if it was his typo or if his phone had autocorrected him, but the phrase stood out like a certain death sentence.

[ **....the very least you could do at this point is give me some of your cock.** ]

Nakamaru’s eyes were glued to his screen because there was no way on this green earth that he’d ever look at Ueda again. He was mortified, could feel the blood heating his cheeks and his ears.

His phone shook again.

[ **I figured you’d have worked out a classier way to ask me, but if eight years worth of dinner made you this desperate, then fine** ]

Nakamaru choked. Kame glanced at him through the makeup mirror’s reflection, a disinterested glance. Nakamaru quickly grabbed the sides of his chair and scraped it so he wouldn’t be facing Ueda. He had to be joking of course. There was just no way.

Well, there’d been moments. Things they didn’t talk about. Nakamaru had been confused and they were on holiday.

A shake. Nakamaru’s hands were shaking too when he clicked the message box again. He really ought to just tell Ueda it was a mistake or this would get _really_ embarrass--

[ **I still remember how your mouth felt, by the way** ]

...embarrassing for the both of them.

Nakamaru expelled a helpless breath. He remembered it too-- god-- Hawaii...the way the room felt, the sweltering heat and the both of them so young. All it had taken was Ueda kissing the side of his throat and Nakamaru was all over him. He’d never behaved like that; he’d said things; _done_ things that night he is almost sure he hadn’t repeated. Nakamaru shut his eyes to the image bleeding right through the forefront of his mind. They _weren’t supposed to talk about it_.

Nakamaru squeezed his phone, breathing slowly as Ueda’s next message popped up.

[ **If it was now, we could make it better.** ]

He couldn’t even swallow. Why had it become like this? Nakamaru felt the goosebumps form at his back; he could feel Ueda’s stare on the back of his neck. With it, Nakamaru felt reminiscent touches; the pleas and swearings they’d made when things were simpler. He remembered how Ueda had moved; sleek and perfect, groaning hot memories over his throat as his fingers clamped on his hips.

Nakamaru licked his lips, and looked up at the mirror where Ueda was still leaned back in his chair. Except now he had this look fixed on Nakamaru; a keen and euphoric break, eyes bright like Nakamaru had answered his every prayer. It was so dead-set open that Nakamaru sucked in a breath he hadn’t exhaled yet.

He bent his head to his phone, thumbs playing over the keys in hesitant sweeps with everything in him practically singing tension and the rebirth of one basic wish.

He mailed Ueda back. [ **I’ve missed you so much** ]

 

 

3.

**_Word Choice: lost  
Porn, angst or fluff: porn ofc_ **

**This Is You**

  
Ueda quite likes Nakamaru. He tastes like something cinnamon and snaps like something with a trigger. He could spend a lot of time appreciating Nakamaru’s best points. When he’s spread out and loose, dark eyes and bitten lips…

There is his job, though.

It all can get so hectic and painful and so many things that are not him, but whenever Ueda just starts to feel enough of himself disappear, he finds it all the next moment. All Nakamaru has to do is get in his way, fix Ueda with that fond, easy, and ready-for-a-good-time look, and then let Ueda push him backward onto any available and supportive surface.

His white rug goes dark with a rapidly blooming stain of a spilt glass of iced tea he’d knocked over in his rush.

Today it’s Ueda’s coffee table.

Nakamaru murmurs his reproach over Ueda’s lips because of course, it’s _his_ drink.

_“Goddamn.”_

He only hears Nakamaru’s curse like a faint baritone, distant, but thrumming right under his ribs, thundering with his heartbeat. He shuts his eyes and rocks deeper; growls when Nakamaru clenches, feels him fevered from the inside—all soaked and silk. His knees are scraping against the grains of wood under them and he can hear the slide of their skin and Nakamaru’s palms sliding over the edge.

His mind is ringing with want; actions so blistering as even Nakamaru’s hard, desperate gasps against his arm are seeping right into his veins, making him push harder.

And this is him-- them; if they keep at this, he’ll always remember..

Rehearsal; boxing; choreography; running; interviews; magazines and their insipid writers; training; long, silent drives to god-knows-where for god-knows-what, and a soft yes for dinner with a co-worker.

His schedule is literally about to grow horns and start baring its fangs at him these days and Ueda hates thinking about it.

He feels like he’s reached the point where he’s forgotten what a proper night’s sleep feels like; that manic point where he can almost _taste_ whenever he thinks too deeply; where everything he does between breaths has its own furious, exhausting slice.

And that’s really just a typical Wednesday.

Forgetting who he is outside of work takes time, but Ueda has had his fair share. He _could_ forget; would just as well. It’d be easier. To just drop it all and lose himself in front of cameras, behind microphones—all contrived expressions and simple cut-across dialogue. Automated would be safe; mechanical would be easy.

And yet, there is Nakamaru.

Nakamaru—all spindly and strung as tight as a piano string—knows how to wrap around him and he tells Ueda in words that are barely _that_ just how he knows him. Besides the obvious fact that Nakamaru is like something curving and a little sharp Ueda can rub up against. Nakamaru likes him and he doesn’t let Ueda forget.

Over the phone when Ueda’s about to drop off—just barely making it through a proper conversation, Nakamaru sounds like how his childhood heroes should’ve sounded—like action figures in adorably lame bowties. “You’ll find your pace,” he says. “Just be yourself.”

Ueda has started to spend every day off with him for this reason. And he doesn’t respond to questions over the matter. It’s none of their business.

It isn’t so much that their conversations can be banal, because they really can be. Or that they are routine enough that—if a day for them alone was itinerated inconsequentially—a more malicious person might suggest they’re a boring pair.

“Forget about it for now,” he’d ordered, one hand already up Nakamaru’s tousled shirt once he had him down.

Nakamaru had laughed at him; the soft, delectable skin of his chest trembled with each chuckle.

It isn’t even that Nakamaru is funny; his reactions; his casual silliness, or his unwarranted annoyance with Ueda now and then.

“You’re so coming over tonight,” he’d told him in an commanding undertone. Precursor for another long-awaited day off.

Nakamaru had had his nose buried in a book, but he’d nodded without looking up. The usual.

Ueda makes Nakamaru’s mouth slide open under his each time he thrusts to press slick differences and hot breaths over him. Then Nakamaru’s pained sigh when Ueda arches over him starts a frenzy and they’re a rocking mess the next second. Nakamaru’s thighs slide up his, knees digging in as his socked feet strike the other end of the table.

Their rhythms and touches are always routine, but the way it feels each time isn’t. Nakamaru’s stare is a little mean this time and it’s all there again, every piece of himself brought together by the terrific lack of fear in his gaze. Almost like a firm ‘this is you’. Only for him. That has him sighing with some relief over Nakamaru’s throat while he brushes his knuckles over the front of Nakamaru’s trousers. He curls his fingers around him through the fabric, then, beginning to rub a caustic friction. Nakamaru loses his quiet and gives a voiceless groan, kicking his hips up, hard through his trousers and grinding into Ueda’s palm.

Ueda braces himself on the table’s edge and nibbles down the collar of Nakamaru’s button-down while Nakamaru’s surprisingly strong fingers smooth up under his t-shirt and down his ribs to reach for his hips, fitting them together. He only needs one hand in Nakamaru’s pants and the rest is fluid. Nakamaru bites sometimes; isn’t aware that he does it because he goes utterly blind when Ueda’s working him this hard.

“That’s it,” Nakamaru mumbles on a broken sob and Ueda’s bends him completely in two, rolls in on an angle that has them both whimpering.

Yeah, that’s definitely it.

He can’t get lost when this is him; _them_. Nakamaru wouldn’t let him.

 

 

4.

**_Word Choice: law  
Porn, angst, or fluff:_ **

**A Well-Laid Plan**

  
The American cop uniform was _supposed_ to make Nakamaru laugh. The idea was to arrive at his apartment decked up like a boy in blue; a hat, blue trousers with its customary yellow stripe; short sleeved shirt, rolled up around his arms with the handcuffs and holster attached to his wide black belt. He was supposed to freak him out by hammering on his door and once he opened it, Ueda would aim his gun and bark, “Freeze!”

Actually, it was supposed to make _Ueda_ laugh. At Nakamaru. Nakamaru was supposed to get that hunted look; supposed to shriek maybe…

There is that saying about well-laid plans, but that just doesn’t apply to him.

Yet, all Nakamaru had had to say about having a gun pointed at him was a delicate and determined murmur of, “Is that real?”

What had escalated then was nowhere near the image of a well-laid plan. Ueda actually wishes he could take credit for it, though. He’s even sort of furious with himself for not having decided to do this sooner because Nakamaru looks like a whole different person, shirtless and handcuffed to his own headboard, shivering as Ueda, now straddling him, presses the gun barrel to his jaw.

To be quite clear, Ueda had never been much turned on by guns, but there’s something contagious about the way Nakamaru’s pupils are wide and he keeps making these hurt sounds in his throat as his delicate wrists strain against his cuffs. It’s something Ueda could really get used to.

Nakamaru opens his mouth around the barrel with a hitched breath, closes his full, dark lips on it and Ueda can’t stop staring. He’s never seen anything hotter. Then Nakamaru opens his eyes and with the gun pressed to his tongue he looks up at Ueda, eyes bright and dazed with lust and Ueda actually gasps.

He’s hard. Ueda can feel him because he’s started shifting, straining with more desperation, his thin, breakable wrists bound together above his head and every inch of his skin gleams. Ueda shifts down, takes the gun with him, dragging a deep line down Nakamaru’s ribs, and watches him twitch where the metal touches.

Nakamaru’s back arches when Ueda trails the gun--the tip still wet with his saliva—over Nakamaru’s waistline, slipping in under his pants at intervals. The area around the cuffs has gone all pink and Nakamaru’s moans are getting deeper, longer. Ueda can’t help it; he rocks with him, feeling his own erection dig a pressure pattern over Nakamaru’s.

The handcuffs clink against the headboard when Nakamaru begins to writhe. “Please,” he begs breathlessly. “Take them off.”

Ueda feels hot all over; he barely remembers to exhale when he murmurs, “In a second.”

Nakamaru whines; it’s the way he’d whine when Ueda teases him about something entirely different and for some reason that only makes it hotter for Ueda. He leans up, stretching over Nakamaru’s laid out form and licks into his mouth, completely done in because the way Nakamaru just responds to that. He’s so different like this and so much the same. He rolls his hips upward flexibly and spreads his legs all at once and the contact is startling and it has Ueda scraping fingers across the sheet as he struggles with his other hand to get the zipper of his uniform undone.

Ueda gets himself out and shudders, curving over him and trying to keep his head together because he’s about to lose it. Nakamaru leans up and captures his lips, arms straining against their prison, as his hips do a wind that has Ueda biting off a harsh moan of his own. He pauses long enough to yank Nakamaru’s pants around his thighs before dropping down on him with a slow, greedy grind.

“Put the gun in my mouth again,” Nakamaru whispers against his lips and Ueda nods.

Ueda sits up a bit, aligning himself to Nakamaru. He hisses in a breath when the head of Nakamaru’s cock licks down the cluster of veins under his. Nakamaru opens his mouth for him, taking the barrel in like he means to suck it. Ueda fists the pillows over Nakamaru’s head, growling when they start their rhythm. He thrusts like he’s fucking him and Nakamaru’s hips keep circling, quickening Ueda with the filthy sounds he keeps making around the gun barrel.

Ueda drags a tongue along the sharp incline of Nakamaru’s shoulder before he closes his lips over skin, now rocking a vicious friction then. He’s far gone and Nakamaru’s bringing it out in him, acting like this, being so---everything he could ever want. It isn’t enough and Ueda pushes his knees deep into the mattress to balance so he can reach between them, squeeze them both and rock over Nakamaru’s cock at the same time. Nakamaru goes rigid at that, eyelids falling shut as he kicks his hips upward in a severed and aborting pattern. Ueda pants across his skin, feeling Nakamaru’s cock twitch through his fingers and the wetness between them. He rides him through, rocks until he can’t even keep the rhythm. He isn’t sure what he groaned but Nakamaru nods, eyes still shut as Ueda feels his end blow through him, a shock like a wet fever, completely blinding until he’s just a quivering mess on top of Nakamaru.

Moments pass and Nakamaru doesn’t move; the room seems to be settling in again around them and Ueda can hear the slowing thunder of his heartbeat. He’s completely sated and a total disaster lying here. Nakamaru is so warm and it strikes Ueda that he can hear the complacency of his breaths; like Ueda might actually know this guy so well, he could read him in the very air if he wanted to.

That’s when something very terrible strikes him and he sits up with his best affronted look for Nakamaru. “Goddammit, Nakamaru; this is a rental!”

Yet, all Nakamaru has to respond to Ueda’s sound accusation is a lazy smile and a bit of a wriggle. “Buy it,” he says.

 

 

5.  
_**Word Choice: sand  
Porn, angst, or fluff: fluff**_

**Moonlight Without A Blueprint**

  
“I still say we should’ve made some sort of plan,” Nakamaru mumbles at him doubtfully.

At two a.m. the beach is bathed in a lazure blue. The moon is nearly full and its silver splashes an eerie sheen over them; over the sand under Ueda’s fingers. It’s cool too, and so much chillier than it would be during the day that it makes the moon seem like a frozen, great thing, looming over them—this foreign, bright witness to the two of them, kneeling under a bank of lava rock.

“You know, like an actual blueprint?” Nakamaru continues, leaning over to examine Ueda’s side from behind him. Ueda can hear him breathing out his nose; the way he does when he’s had a drink or two. Ueda smiles at his sand-covered hands as he pushes another lump of it over for further moulding.

That’s really the trouble with their occasional trips overseas. Jet lag. It had them passing out as soon as they’d hit the hotel—sprawled out on either side of a vacuum of a bed—only to be wide awake and completely at a loss around one a.m. They’d raided the minibar, expensive though it is. Ueda isn’t sure how they wound up out here, beside the whisper of waves and strange sounds of the night.

Ueda had begun to build a quick, sloppy sandcastle, and barefoot, tousled, and a little revved up from the liquor, Nakamaru—the foreman archetype— _still_ wants to have a plan first. Ueda has the moat all built, a large incline around a mound of sand. He pulls up more with his fingers, as Nakamaru kneels beside him and scoops up the damp layer underneath with the side of his palm.

Ueda peers at him sideways, watches how his funny mouth forms a comfortable moue; his skin glowing like it’s under a black-light.

“Perhaps we’ll build a French castle. Do an Impressionist bit.” Nakamaru added jovially. Ueda can’t really see him fully in this light, so when Nakamaru does look down, his eyes only fix a gaze with two different shadowed shades of depth, each like looking into a house full of everyone Ueda liked. “Ùnless you’re all about the Middle Ages right now, in which case, we’ll build a ‘keep’ and decide the surrounding court—”

He’s rambling. Ueda shakes his head, grabbing a stick to carve a hole for a door. “We’re not building a _monument_ , Nakamaru; it won’t last anyway,” he tells him.

One wall of the castle begins to crumble a bit as he moulds the door and Ueda quickly reaches for the loose sand, pressing the cracks closed. Nakamaru hasn’t taken his eyes off him and Ueda can feel it. A faint cloud must have passed its journey across the moon because suddenly the light reflecting off the sea is pooling around them and the lava rock now looks like it has diamond studs in it. The packed sand under his fingernails and in the creases of his skin is turning dusty as it dries. Nakamaru’s palm comes to rest, cold and sandy, on his; he could be placing pressure on the cracks with him. Ueda is abruptly conscious of how close they’re sitting.

“I’d really want it to last, though,” Nakamaru says with remarkable nonchalance. He pats damp sand into another crumbling spot with a weirdly expert gesture. “Wouldn’t you?

Ueda starts to smile again before he looks away from his current project to give Nakamaru a glance; but he finds himself suddenly scalded by the look Nakamaru has on. If he could draw like Nakamaru, Ueda would probably portray this sort of look on his face; it’s so very him. Unsure and delicately terrified, but so matter-of-fact about it, the person on the receiving end of this look would just have to second-guess themselves. Ueda is definitely second-guessing a great many things this moment.

“Well, since you’re working on it too…” Ueda begins, tearing his eyes away with a panic he doesn’t quite want to name. “What would you know about castles anyway?”

He can hear the smile in Nakamaru’s tone. “You’re very young,” he murmurs; he’s much closer; practically speaking into Ueda’s ear. “If you had lived as long as I have, junior—”

“—It’s really nice to think that in a month I will know everything you know,” Ueda cuts in serenely, barely inclining his head; he can feel the feather of Nakamaru’s breath spilling down his collar “…Gives me something to look forward to.”

His hands are very warm; both of them, but he feels like Nakamaru’s palm on the back of his is an easy weight. Ueda is trying, with fruitless effort, not to smile with his tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek.

“It’s practically _two_ months,” Nakamaru informs him, his every word practically shining golden with his laughter. “But don’t let that discourage you.”

Ueda laughs. It’s one of their exchanges about absolutely nothing, but Ueda is shivering with meaning, After a careful moment, he clears his throat and tries to look at him inadvertently. Nakamaru sees the look and instantly stops looking so terrified; he’s all smiles and so many sorts of appealing. Confident. Ueda’s pretty sure Nakamaru’s really about to kiss him.

While his senses are doing their own thing, Ueda is completely amused by what confidence always does to Nakamaru.

“It’s _one_ month, Nakamaru…” he murmurs quickly, a bit punch-drunk, but determined to take an open shot where he can get it. “But are you seriously about to kiss me?”

Nakamaru’s eyes shut, and he sighs with only his type of exasperation. “Ueda, must you ruin _everything_ by sounding like that?”

Ueda bursts out laughing again. He loves him. Really, properly loves him, and it _should_ be so simple. He’s mid-cackle when Nakamaru makes a sound of frustration, reaches up his neck to cup his jaw. The very moment Nakamaru’s lips curve and crush over his—a whole lot of lightning that strikes its glass-weaving shimmer between them—Ueda pulls his hand out from under Nakamaru’s to get a good grab at his collar. This tips their balance and lands Nakamaru on his back right on their little mess of sandcastle. Ueda couldn’t care less.

 

 

6.  
_**Word Choice: Flower  
Porn, angst or fluff: Angst and fluff**_

**We'll Always Have Flowers**

 

  
When Ueda realised what Nakamaru meant to him, it was an airy evening in Hokkaido and Nakamaru had tucked a brush of lavender in his shirt pocket and laughed because it was romantic and they weren’t but flowers were sort of a thing they could share. Even when things weren't all right; Ueda thought of flowers and...

So much has changed since then.

Ueda is perched on the outdoor veranda railing at Nakamaru’s house. Nakamaru is a sensible decorator and it’s so weird. His assembly of wooden chairs, lined with plain dark blue cushions, and they match his curtains indoors. Ueda can picture Nakamaru browsing through a list, pointing one decisive finger at the blue-- probably titled something silly like ‘midnight stormy ocean’--and he’d know the name of it. It’s _so weird_. Like what can it matter?

He has one leg hanging off its edge as Nakamaru stands just a little ways behind him, keeping a sensible distance. He’s so visibly afraid of being too close like he might tip Ueda’s balance on the small ledge just by standing there.

Ueda’s jumped off higher places.

It’s a family building with a small park. Very private. Loads of trees, willows and gold-leafed non-descripts. All their branches hang low and all are perfectly trimmed with early Winter sunshine and it’s probably the last they’ll have before the real Winter comes.

_You don’t talk to me anymore_

Nakamaru and Ueda never fight. Not really, anyway.

Drinking hot Kahlua milk, they watch the city’s rooftops, naked under sunlight, plain and turning steadily grim under a stare that’s like a burn. Ueda _could_ laugh it off. He has before.

“You have something to say?” he asks him, refusing to turn and look. If he’d looked at him, it’d be more serious. And they can’t be serious. It’d be like Nakamaru’s decor; the same as plucking petals, placing them in some glass bowl just to decorate water. Whatever for.

At some point, you’ve got to pour that water out.

Nakamaru shifts his weight, resting light hands on his hips. Ueda can see the motion out of the corner of his eye.

When Ueda thinks of the sort of person he could fall for, he sometimes pictures flowers and rain and soft swimming confessions that no one else would ever hear. A magic someone who isn’t regular old Nakamaru. He is regular, all right, with his careful graces, paralysing phobias, a strong sense of social distress; how he’s so underhanded in a surprisingly aggravating way, and really very simple in a lot more ways.

“You say you want my words” Nakamaru says frankly. “You say you want to tell me things.”

Ueda can hear the stark tension in his voice; what his expression probably looks like.

This isn’t a fight and if it were, it must always end with the same lack of pay-off. Just a lot of, “All right. OK, OK, I get it, let’s not—”

Let’s not do this for real. Let’s not be those sorts of people. Let’s not have to pave the way for intensity, indiscretion, promises and irrationality; all things you can’t keep secret in the face of…

Let’s just not.

Leave it hanging in the air; a tart taste of something incomplete, the foundation of words they’d never say; things Nakamaru wouldn’t think it worth to say.

“I do say that,” Ueda ventures. This is as clear as it’s going to get with them. “But if you really feel you’ve got nothing new to say to me…”

Ueda couldn’t picture Nakamaru fighting heatedly for anything. So he wouldn’t fight. He’d brush it off, break down the subject matter and call it ridiculous; a waste of time. He wouldn’t fight Ueda because it’d mean caring just a little bit more.

The truth is Ueda no longer likes to deconstruct the sort of person he _could_ fall for because lately he gets a good look at Nakamaru—even like this—and that’s all he sees. Nothing else looks any better; nothing else makes him this terribly unhappy.

“Everything I say...this communication; it’s just response, isn’t it? You say something first then. At least?” He’s using his favourite placating tone. The one he uses when he’s upset. The same tone that somehow manages to make it sound like Ueda’s the one who’s _too_ angry; who’s being petty and childish.

“It’s not anything specific,” Ueda retorts; his mouth is brimming with specifics. “I like when we talk. Is that so bad? Our old conversations meant something. I want to get those back.”

Ueda finally twists and glances at Nakamaru. Just a glance. Nakamaru is frowning, scrutinizing him diligently. Unreadable, yet openly reading dark brown eyes.

And now he’s serious, now there’s something in his stare much more than an impatient ‘let’s end this’. “You can’t just say let’s go back to how it was. It doesn’t work that way. It all changes and we adapt; we make concessions, but we _don’t_ regress.”

Ueda feels like he can’t breathe. “Fine,” he says tightly; he stares determinedly at him, barely able to keep the gaze because his entire body is twisting away from it. “If you say so.”

Nakamaru squints, his mouth forming a quick wrinkle. “God, I know how that sounded.” His gaze drops and Ueda feels everything on him relax as he looks away. “I just don’t think we should be so afraid of what we---our-- _this_ changing.”

It’s a bleeding silence and Ueda’s own heart kind of aches. He wants to change but he doesn’t want Nakamaru to change like this.

“I’m not afraid,” he says hotly, wishing he could swallow whatever it is making him miserable right now. “You say ‘we’ like I’m changing with you, but it’s just you.”

From their distance he doesn’t expect it, so Nakamaru reaching out nearly startles him but a sure hand on the crook of his arm plus a quick and surprising cool touch right near his ear-- tucking a stray hair it would seem-- steadies him. He turns his head just as Nakamaru smiles a little shyly and helps him down lets him drop to the veranda floor on the balls of his feet.

Ueda feels the weight he leaves there when he lets him go and reaches up to touch.

Petals and a stem. He takes it off his ear to look at it. A blue lily. .

“Whatever change happens, it’ll be us together. I’m sure of that,” says Nakamaru and Ueda thinks he’s probably memorised the way his eyes look when he has something fearsome to say. “We can talk like this…”

Ueda’s fingers still hold the tiny dumb flower when he crushes it to Nakamaru’s chest. and watches the shock on his face build when he leans forward and takes his lips quickly like he hoped they belonged to him..

When Ueda thinks of the sort of person he could fall for, he sometimes pictures flowers and rain and soft swimming confessions that no one else would ever hear. A magic someone. Someone who has bloomed the way Nakamaru has, someone who burns him with a cheesy little gesture like this.

Nakamaru hums fondly into the kiss and it doesn’t matter. They can fight all the want; but they’ll still have flowers.  



End file.
